This is my reaction blog for Wind and Truth. Beware of spoilers! Index post here. 

Title: Not Alone
This took me a minute to figure out because I was trying to figure out what the POV symbol was for. Who is a human-singer teamup? Renarin and Rlain, that’s who. Which means we might finally learn something about Renarin and his powers, or at least lay the foundation for his sub-order of enlightened Truthwatchers and how he and Rlain will get along.
The stained glass crystal background is pretty sweet. Not sure about their palms-up pose, which to me is reminiscent of prayer.

Icon: Palah
Yup, we got truthwatchers.

Epigraph: Another good aphorism. Honestly, I’m surprised we’re sticking with the fourth parable all the way through this set of epigraphs. I assumed we’d cover two or three different ones.

Renarin liked the pre-awakened tower better. At a first guess he's talking about how it was easier to find solitude, except that it's in direct opposition to title. Oh, no he liked the chilly and thin mountain air. He must have been hanging out with Rock too much. All this muggy lowland air is getting on his nerves. 

A harvest every two months is an insane crop yield. Presumably the farmers will have enough hands to keep up with it, but yeah that's probably what you need for the tower's megalopolis.

Oh, I see. The Tower is doing all the work, obviating the knowledge transfer Rlain labored to share about enhancing plant growth with stormlight and song. 

Woah, hold up. The rhythms get harder to hear the longer Rlain is in the tower? That's the opposite of what I would have predicted. I'd have thought that the extra investiture would make them stronger. On the other hand, possibly the Sibling's presence is strong enough to somewhat drown out the ambient rhythms of Roshar? Except it's not just while he's in the tower, it's an effect that magnifies with the duration of his stay in the tower. So more like a loud noise making someone temporarily deaf, rather than simply overwhelming the other noises. Is this a thing that happens around other exceptionally powerful spren?

Rlain's black and red skin is accompanied by a red and black beard. Does the hair color match the underlying skin and follow the same patterns? I would assume so, but that's not certain. 

Rlain's knowledge is still helpful. He understands which plants to cultivate in which arrangements to keep them all well cared for and correctly pollinated by cremlings. 

Glys and Renarin have a close telepathic/empathetic bond, similar to Navani and the sibling and in contrast to Syl or Pattern. Renarin just says “not all radiants” are like that, but how common is it? Is it based on the type of spren? Simply individual nature? 

Rlain’s panic at conversation feels more pronounced than his social discomfort in past POV sections. Granted he shows up extremely rarely, but his challenges in the past seemed more to do with expectations and not during the traditional mold than with general interactions. This just seems overemphasized to me. 

Drehy here to be spruce of Renarin’s crush/interest in Rlain. Yay for friends. Also for verbal digs at spren companions. 

Quote

“Think of everyone as people. Human. Listener. Spren. All people. Even if some of them for and are annoying.”

Talla’s preferred form is a blue chicken, which is very strange. Birds are uncommon on Roshar, and the place where they are common (Shinovar) is apparently almost devoid of spren. How did Talla come to that preference? 

This relationship talk is fine, but not capturing me. And Renarin's issues do feel extra emphasized. It's fine–this is his introduction in the book after not seeing him for a couple years, so we need to reestablish his character. But if it's like this every time he's going to start feeling rather one-note.

And it cuts off just as his vision starts. We still weren't learning much about how he and Glys do things. It seems like he still has very little control over his powers, with this vision coming upon him suddenly and without prompting.

Hm, just got distracted by a tangent. Add a resident associated with Sja-anat, will Renarin be able to achieve shardplate in the standard way? Will he have to attract enough enlightened spren to form his armor, or can the non-”corrupted” type function for him? For that matter, is there Anthony different about Glys’ blade form, assuming it exists as expected? 

Rlain has self-image problems, which is hardly surprising for a species that changes forms with accompanying thought process alterations. The fascinating thing here is that he's able to be more himself despite the influence of the form (presumably an influence that originates with the bonded spren). This is very reminiscent of the way Timbre kept Venli’s bonded voidspren captive inside her gemheart and mediated the influence (such as the new rhythms) it expected on Venli. Except here Tumi doesn't have to work as hard. 

I somewhat recall Timbre needing to also enter the gemheart to enforce the imprisonment, but that doesn't sound right. Was that a thing? 

Tumi is in fact within Rlain, so maybe that is a thing. I guess a gemheart can house more than one spren. But do listener/singer-bonded nahel spren have additional obstacles to manifesting as blades or otherwise outside of their radiant’s body? 

It's little wonder that there's a cultural barrier between listeners and humans. Just from the way Rlain is interacting with this lone awespren, he sees it when humans don't, and sees a different shape than they do when it does appear more physically. That plus the rhythms means that humans and listeners are constantly reacting to different stimuli, and will seen very odd to one another even when they are trying to communicate in good faith. 

From the outside, humans can't tell anything is going on with Renarin, but Rlain sees the vision occurring as Renarin being encased in a distortion of the air.

That's interesting. Rlain entering the distortion had him entering the vision directly. I presume the reverse would also be true if Rlain got a vision? Could a normal truthwatcher join them as well, or is it restricted to their enlightened variety? Anyway, I wasn't expecting that to happen. Rlain apparently was, but Renarin is shocked. He's also very grateful to not be alone. (Seems like he could have talked about it more, but obviously Vorin sensibilities make future sight extremely taboo, so it's hard to really fault him.)

Quote

“Remember. Remember it can be lies.”
“Why pay attention if it could all be lies?”
“Because the truth is just the lie that happened.”

Oof. That edgy cynicism cuts deep, Renarin. Fortunately Rlain is not quite that jaded yet.

Glys' appearance (to Rlain’s eyes) is weird: a red lattice dripping beads of light upward into the sky. What does Glys look like to Renarin? Does Tumi look the same? I presume that Sja-anat's touch is unique for each of her children, not necessarily a uniform effect. Speaking of which, what does a regular truthwatcher spren look like? 

Ren on a throne in traditional garb, but in his bedroom? Interesting place to keep your throne. Still, this vision lets him share an intimate setting and parts of himself: the books and the wooden models. 

Huh. It's not traditional Alethi wear, it's singer garb. Probably indicating what Ren would look like as a king under Odium.

Glys tries to explain what causes the visions and what determines what they see: 

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“There are swells in the rhythms of Roshar. Currents, and old gods, will watch.”
“Old gods,” Rlain said as Tumi, in his gemheart, changed to the Rhythm of the Lost. “The Unmade?”
“Older,” Glys said. “Older still than Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.”

Glys then explains that the listeners predated Honor and Cultivation on Roshar, and Rlain (despite having just asked “what’s older than the Shards?”) immediately attunes the Rhythm of the Winds, which he associates with being ancient. That’s a strangely persistent bit of culture to last across millenia and the huge changes between eras of Roshar’s history. Especially since in any other culture wind would be more likely to be associated with ephemerality and transience. It really speaks to how fundamental the storms are to the everything on Roshar, but also to an underpinning of Wind in the magic of the planet.

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“Long ago, before any of them arrived, did we have forms? Were there spren?”

Rlain asking the big questions. I’m betting on yes to both, but there are obvious differences to the spren that would be available primevally compared to those that are around now after having been influenced by millenia of people’s thoughts. Those differences in singer forms would be fascinating to learn about. 
And Glys suggests that’s an answer they might be able to get from the Bondsmith, who conveniently will be delving into the past via the Spiritual realm. Sweet! At least the fans will be fed interesting lore.

The windows in the hallway are all the same? Oh, never mind. I misread that. They are mirrored right and left, but those duplicates change as they go down the hall: Renarin on a throne, the Everstorm, Dalinar facing a golden figure on top of a cliff above a collapsing city. Renarin recognizes that last one from Dalinar’s vision descriptions. If he’s right that would make the figure Honor, when I am pretty certain it would be Odium based on the coloration and the future clash that we’re expecting between the two. 

Nice that Ren is trying to hum the Rhythms and connect with Rlain that way. I feel like Navani isn’t getting credit though in Rlain’s assessment–Renarin definitely isn’t the first human to be doing this.

Next window: 12 people in a grass field with a feeling of peace. Not sure who the rest will be in the Shinovar adventure, but I’m guessing the other Honorblade trainees and Szeth’s family will figure. Oh wait, they’re not all Shin (or Shin-like worldhoppers). Instead, some of them are recognizably from different Rosharan ethnicities (Makabaki, Unkalaki) and one has deep blue skin in a richer shade than either Natan or Siah Aimian. Weird. Best guess is that it is Azure, with some name symbolism showing up, unless she does some Awakening that results in interesting color effects. Overall, I do not know what to predict from that.

Oh dear. Mishram infested the vision. Very freaky!

And just as they escape the compromised vision, Shallan shows up to recruit them both. I’m not sure I would have predicted those two as being her preferred team, but I’m not opposed to the direction this is taking.

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